werken:1915 - The Quest of Beauty & other poems1916 - The Quest of Thruth & other poems1916 - The Poetry of H Rex Freston

The Gift

His eyes are bright and eager, with the brightness of the sun,(England, he gives them you)His hands are strong for climbing and his feet are swift to run,(England, he gives them you)He has knowledge of the meadows, in the dreamy autumn days,The brown hill, and the gold hill, and the green forgotten ways,(But he leaves them now for you).There s a certain ancient city where he once was free and young,(But he leaves it now for you),Where Oxford tales are spoken, and Oxford ways are sung,(But he leaves them now for you)And his heart is often weary, for that dear old river shore,And he thinks a little sadly, of the days that come no more,(But he gives them up for you).If his dust is one day lying, in an unfamiliar land,(England, he went for you)Oh, England, sometimes think of him, of thousands, only one,In the dawning, or the noonday, or the setting of the sun,(As once he thought of you) .For to him and many like him, there seemed no other way(England, he asked not why)The giving up of all things, for ever and for aye,(England, he asked not why)And so he goes unshrinking, from those dearest paths of home,For he knows, great-hearted England, let whatever fate may comeYou will never let him die !

Now, I would wander endlessly, In small towns, on unknown roads, I would drag myself aimlessly, Starting in the town of Hrubieszow. From shops full of secrets, To colorful, wonderful fairs, I watch life in miniatures, And the strangest collections in the antiquarian's shop.

The sad inns, full of strangers,Odd looking faces from a century and a half ago, Whenever I want, I may leave it, Not looking back at anything, Not waiting for anything, And somewhere, in an empty restaurant, one winter evening I want to meet you for a glass of wine.We will be happy, sitting at the wooden table, And talk to each other, at the late winter hour,

Then, we will go out into the winter stormTo walk against the wind, As we always do, as we did before, Then we part - happily, just with a smile, Till the next rendezvous - after quite a while.

In prison, Lublin, 1941

THE STONES (Kamienie)

I used to like watching stones, They are naked, simple like a truth. Silent rough beings. Without tears and love - without complaint… Thrown on huge, wide earth… Stripped yearnings, free from hope Stand, belonging to nobody, yet with grief… Of their hard eternity Free from illusion - Alone in nothingness. And I sorrowed unwisely over something, That I might cry among those mute rocks, That winds chop them up, Storms are passing by, But they last -And nobody rules over them, Because they had lived And became human hearts.

Ravensbrück, 1941

* * *

The suffering touched me too early, I have burned myself out, I am the bright ash without desire. Now, only the silence endures dearly, When I am still standing in the fire.

Ravensbrück 13th April, 1942

THE FOREIGN LAND (Obczyzna)

Silent rows of grey, low buildingsAnd equally grey skies, The grayness without hope. Droves of different people, lost in gloom. The grim picture, strange, too much silence. In the dead emptiness, homesickness drags itself following silence, A pale, strong and mute despair, suffocated by emotion Wanders in dark, blind nooks- Listen, free forests sibilate beyond it. Are we? Are we enduring? Still the same-I don't feel my being, Don't see, don't follow. We have been leaving traces More shallow than oblivion, On the foreign, harsh land. We had been here and nothing else.

Ravensbrück, 1942

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW (Za oknem wiatr)

Outside the window, Wind is swinging the happy storm, But behind the bars you hear at last, Life - Just think: Twenty years old, And our night dreams, Go down the sink. Yet - it is nothing, What does the world we live in look like?

* * *

I hide in my heart The painful bleeding rose - But, if the heart is empty, Would I have remorse?

OUTSIDE THE BARS IN THE SUN (Za kratą w słońcu)

Outside the bars in the sun are green trees,Tiny flower beds with petite pansies - Far away is the patch of blue skies And those faithful words "Pray for us".

People are always and everywhere the same - How long can you be under illusion? What more can be expected of them; They are cruel, poor, uninteresting and small, And I am with them. There is nothing more.

SNOW (Śnieg)

There is a lot of snow, They sell Christmas Trees on squares And someone expects irrationally, That just today is the girls return, To the merry rally, And that all of us together, Dad and we and Kasia, will be forever.

Snow is falling quietly outside the window,The last traces of tiny feet disappeare on the road, In the white storm of the time, everything is lost, But our God sits in the evening under the tree, We believe; he is close when we have a cup of tea.

TO WLADKA (Władce)

You are walking in the forest. With bare, naked feet, You are treading the fragrant moss along the ray of sun. The forest is full of secrets, rustles And the sibilants of homesickness; It is the strange wildwood of love.

Do you smell the forest ground, Hidden in the hissing green? Life grows, flows and strengthens From the deep veins of roots.

Do you see with the forest eyes, the secret, quiet depth of retreats? You know - there is no sun there. The odd murmur, the deepest color: dark-green…

Ravensbrück, 8th March, 1942

THE DREAM (Sen)

I had the dream where you read your own poems,Like those written sometime ago, only these were in the grey book written after death…

And you look finer, paler and tinier every passing moment, Then you disappeare.

The last to vanish were your hands And only the poems were left unharmed And in the poems was left someone's heart.

MOMENTS (Chwile)

Moments are passing by, empty or bleak. They are never as we wish. Nobody's day follows a beaten path. Colorless and wasted, lost in helplessness, And in every moment…. Think about this - life is passing, running out, So what am I waiting for? Though nothing abides.

THE CASUAL SKETCH (Szkic przygodny)

This man, as if he had no face, Husks instead of glittering eyes, Focused and without expression It is obvious - they were empty. I haven't seen his hands despite the fact that he had passed me by. He walked tall,but unsteadyapeared to be dim.His hands, had to be weak, they were empty and like slime.

THOUGHTFULNESS (Zamyślenie)

I was looking for something lost. Near by, there were small coffins Poverty-stricken by the big things, They were tiny at most, Not mine, someone else Too tight for my life, I guess, And life itself, what would it be like, without me? Let me think, It would be indifferent I guess, Like a letter, without subject matter.

* * *

I wish, the earth won't be heavy in your grave, Or hard like stone, or bitter like salt. Let your folded hands sleep for ever, For eternity doesn't hurt, And the pain is not eternal.

THE TINY ROOM (Mały pokoik)To Kasia

Tiny is your flat painted in white. Flowers grow in narrow window. The pictures of saints of long ago, All are in wooden frames, And all hang on the same wall. There is a simple cross with rosary, In the room's corner, herbs are on the table, And a tiny bottle with consecrated water, All has been given to God's care. Small is your room where Human heart faithfully waits.

Ravensbrück, 16th March, 1942

THE INQUIETUDE (Niepokój)

The day is like the inquietude of Chopin's music, The birds, scared away from their nests are circling Low above the earth, They are listening, afraid…

Quietness in the nature, warmth is like before a storm. From the West, low, dark clouds flow. Waylaid fear strikes into the heart.Homesickness, homesickness…

I want to walk on soggy roads, Listen to the sound of wind, Hunt the breath of spring time, Feel the deepest feeling, Find quietness in love.

I am walking, unable to find, keep changing and returning. Somewhere far a way, village hamlets are left behind.

Clouds flew to the East,And on the east side, Lonely, leaning, dark trees endure, In the wind, and in the quietness, They are swung by the inquietude. Ravensbrück. 18 April, 1942

They are our creatures, clover, and they love usThrough the long summer meadows' diesel fumes.Smooth as their scent and contours clear howeverLess than enough to compensate for names.

Jagged are names and not our creaturesEither in kind or movement like the flowers.Raised voices in a car or by a riverRemind us of the world that is not ours.

Silence in grass and solace in blank verdureSummon the frightful glare of nouns and nerves.The gentle foal linguistically woundedSqueals like a car's brakesLike our twisted words.

Antiquities

A gesture is adjective,two hands, granitewhen they turn bread to flesh(Notre Dame, July 14th)A mirror is a museum-case,two hands, priestesses'when she mummifies her face.Emotion is a parenthesis,two hands, ironywhen I light the candleand cross myself.Aesthetic approbation is glasswhen it encloses her faience eyesand gilded skin.(Musée du Louvre, July 18th)Glance is the copulathat petrifies our several identities,syntactic superficies.

II

MichaelmasMy cardboard daisies are in bloomagain.The city's silhouette stands outjust like real, from a child'spop-up book, "a castle cut inpaper" (Gawain & the Grene Knightc.1400). Autumn leaves turn likepages, black on white. For greenand gold must be as parentheticalas walks through sharpening airand clamant colour, smoky lightalong the Backs, from typewriterto Library. "Grammar" derives from"glamour"; ecology may show the twostill cognate: Museum, Gk. mouseion,a seat of the Muses, a buildingdedicated to the pursuit of learningor the arts. (OED)The glamorous grammatical framescaptions for a monograph on non-existent plates. Glue, paper, scissors, and the library togetherpaste a mock-up of an individualhistory. The art of English Poesie?"Such synne is called yronye."

Thoughts of all sorts pervade the mind. The way to release them is sometimes hard to find. The brain holds them as if it were a jail. They cannot be released on any kind of bail. Some are private and should stay where they are. Others should be scattered near and afar. With great effort some manage to escape, From where they have known mauling..death..or rape. Disguise of laughter, screams, or gasps, and sighs, Or wails and prayers, can tear them from their ties. Then, once broken away from their captor "the brain", They change into whispers of escaped thoughts...free to remain Thence to detect-enlighten-buffer-man's struggle against the wind. They bring new life to places where before man failed or sinned. A thought in it's free state, is as flexible as the breeze To gain a new configuration-modified or embellished-to please. Descending like breeze-swirled, leaves of the fall. Multicolored words, soft or brittle, broken or shaped, drop on all. To nurture..be reborn...return to brain. Where mind swirls...and thoughts plan escape again.

Tyrants Of The Night

Rush onward in your endless flight, Oh, giant tyrants of the night. Less shaded by a veil of gloom. I fail to see the summer moon. Unlike the firefly or the star. Designed to flicker from afar, Moon's glow was meant to flood the earth, In her the poets' dreams find birth. My life, my loves, I must impart To this enchantress of my heart. So, clouds, begone to distant skies Let moonlight beam all it implies. In darkness, love is lost by broken ties. Lovers neath a shining moon say "adieu" to sighs and cries and love that dies! Moon spell prevail... O'er hill and dale Romance be king! While tyrants of the night... take wing!